US in support of OpenAI’s fair-use claim and warns of AI licensing oligopoly

The US Justice Department told a Manhattan federal court Tuesday that OpenAI’s use of copyrighted writing at the training stage should be protected by fair use, a position that could reshape the economics of the global AI industry as worldwide investment is set to exceed $1 trillion this year.

In the statement of interest it filed in the consolidated copyright lawsuit against OpenAI, the government warned that if developers were made to license training text, only wealthy corporations would be able to continue making cutting-edge AI technologies.

The government argues that its argument has both legal and economic implications: mandatory licensing could create huge hurdles to entry, bolster incumbent tech firms, and transfer much of the resulting profits to existing publishers with the largest archives.

Why Washington calls a licensing regime an entry barrier

According to the Justice Department, imposing a cost on the information used to train AI may cause smaller developers to be marginalized by bigger players.

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